An Ohio school nurse discovered a third grader had anemia symptoms and told the student’s mother to get her daughter to a doctor immediately, essentially saving the child’s life, according to multiple Tuesday reports.
Rachel Ocampo, the school nurse, recalled one of the giveaways was the lack of blood vessels or redness under third grader Mia Machado’s eyes. Ocampo then alerted Mia’s mother to quickly get Mia to a doctor, NBC 29 reported. (RELATED: Nurse Trapped In MRI Machine In Bizarre Accident, Needs Emergency Surgery To Remove Embedded Screws)
“I really can’t express this enough. I wish every school would have a school nurse because if she hadn’t been here, it would not have been caught and I could have lost my little girl.”https://t.co/ADnfsfsEQz
— Cleveland 19 News (@cleveland19news) November 1, 2023
The discovery proved life saving.
“I really can’t express this enough … I wish every school would have a school nurse because if she hadn’t been here, it would not have been caught, and I could have lost my little girl,” Kassie Machado, the child’s mother, said, according to Cleveland 19 News.
Kassie recalled taking her daughter to see a pediatrician, who then said Mia needed to go to the emergency room for blood tests, the outlet noted. The tests confirmed Mia had anemia, Kassie said.
“They told me she could have not just woken up if we had not brought her in,” Kassie said, according to the outlet.
Anemia is a blood disorder that prevents the body from receiving oxygen-rich blood, according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). Anemia can also be a sign of other major diseases, like stomach bleeding, autoimmune diseases, kidney disease or cancer.